Freedom is the power to act, speak, or think as one wants without restraint. The Supreme Court, through the decades, has placed First Amendment “Establishment Clause” freedoms in tension with individual freedom and security from "Nature's God." Evolved government has seen fit to do the same with the other nine amendments.
The moral character of any citizen is reflected in understanding, accepting, and operating among fellow humans in their “pursuit of happiness,” complemented by the other nine amendments.
“Human beings, after all, have some sense; they see that you cannot have any real safety or happiness except in a society where everyone plays fairly (…)-C.S. Lewis.”.
We succeed or fail based on comprehension, zealous defense, and allegiance to sustaining the full intent of these amendments. They offer fair play and freedom.
We have long since departed from 1621 Plymouth’s Combination Principles: an individual’s value, rule of law, self-governance responsibility, and recognition of actions and consequences.
The news media's task is to speak “truth to power,” assuring the citizen of unbiased facts concerning the corruption of governments, their antics, and frivolity (e.g. tax money payments for elected political indiscretion).
As Bill Moyers observed,
“In 1984 the number of companies owning a controlling interest in America's media was 50. Today that number is six.”
Yet, in today’s corporate-managed media world, the previously honorable Meet the Press fails to raise questions making politicians uncomfortable.
In what instances has “freedom” been compromised? Here are some:
- Freedom is suppressed in 1798’s “Alien-Sedition Act” which restricted personal, public activities and statements. In 1875, the Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court decision (7-2) determined a slave who had resided in a free state/territory prohibiting slavery was not entitled to be free. It further determined African-Americans were not and could never be U.S. citizens while confirming U.S. 1820 Missouri Compromise declaration of free territories west of Missouri and north of the 36th parallel was unconstitutional.
- In 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson determined (7-1) a “separate but equal” doctrine for racial segregation laws within the U.S. It lasted until 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education correction.
- In 1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to arbitrarily relocate some 90,000 Japanese-American citizens irrespective of their Fifth Amendment due process rights. They instantly forfeited West Coast homes and properties as they were summarily removed to remote locations Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona.
- On a more current, personal level: 2012 tax dollars pay ATF manager Scot Thomasson, who used taxpayer-funded time and resources to direct taxpayer public relations personnel to push propaganda to drown out the “Fast and Furious” scandal.
- Many corporations are allowed to operate in as monopolies or near-monopolies, (i.e. cable television, health insurers, beverage, waste, personal media, etc). The combination of deceptive marketing and near-monopoly situations destroys the free market, by any technical definition of the term. Alphabet control is estimated at 79% of its market.
- If your parents break laws getting you into college, the outcome is expulsion and convictions. However, if your parents break laws to get you into the country, you receive education and healthcare at taxpayer expense.
- Government legislative direction to medical insurers have created situations where citizens must plead for treatment, argue with a complex and error-prone copayment system, manage deductibles, incomprehensible medical bill denials explanations and process through “Five Levels of Medicare Appeals, potentially some 400 days long,” and understand the multi-volume National Coverage Determination (NCD) Manual Publication 100-3.
- Taxpayers are required to support the public schools, but only those with the most political power control them. Government has the right neither to censor speech nor to compel people to support others speech, yet public schooling does both. Elected school boards have forced parents into conflict over fundamental issues like freedom of expression, religion, morality, creationism, appropriate clothing, theme-days, evolution, multiculturalism, sexuality, in reported cases (Hoover Institute), (Pacific Justice Institute), etc.
Freedom is violated based on some contrived pretense. Security is non-existent. Government actions like taxing some people to provide health care, education, or housing for others is actually redistributing individual freedom without recourse. It is effectively tyranny.
If the government can redistribute at will, what else will it decide to take? Each freedom reducing action encroaches on individual security.
No idea is more fundamental than freedom in relation to how American’s see themselves, as individuals and members of a nation. We struggle through the human character, our foibles, our idiosyncrasies, our loyalty to one another, and our innate sense of a better destiny.
A nation of dissenters, created in dissent.
Today, dissent is seldom honored and upheld. There should be rigorous dissent and discussion, debates, disagreements, and struggles between individuals and groups of people with different ideas and views.
The ideals managing it ought to be consideration of other points of view, searching for the best outcome among choices, and respect for each individual human’s value.
That, in essence, is our freedom--the freedom to be oneself as well as the freedom to be apart from others. Give up any one of those values, and security departs the scene.
It should be obvious government is the biggest violator of basic freedoms found in the Constitution--a Constitution derived on "consent of the Governed" and the original 13 states.
When citizens are unaware of their civic history--failing to grasp the civic pride from human achievement produced in several centuries, which could not be produced in the thousands of preceding centuries elsewhere--security is compromised.
The Constitution is central to our freedom and security. Political parties are fringe elements in the civic domain. Freedom and security cannot be sustained if:
- two-thirds cannot identify the three branches of government,
- three-fourths do not know the judiciary’s functions,
- four-fifths cannot name two rights listed in the Declaration.
An Article V Convention of States exemplifies the freedom which citizens possess from the Founders' wisdom. A failure to engage in this citizen action can only lead to a continued loss of freedom and subsequent insecurities that must follow.
As Ben Franklin eloquently stated:
“it is a republic if you [we citizens] can keep it.”
